Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Competencies

Since my work-blogging went over so well, I am going to do some more. We're "aligning" our corporate something or other and we're all going to get standardized job titles. I work at a HUGE, giant, soulless multinational corporation, so this is really quite an undertaking. But rather than, say, giving us titles that in any way reflect our relative importance in the company or what we actually do, we're going to be given titles that I'm pretty sure are just code. So, here is my version of the (powerpoint, corporate template) slides teaching us all about how awesome this change is going to be, or maybe some HR goons just needed to justify their existence and the large contract they have with the consultants. Whichever.

Succession planning (for when that old guy who writes the schedule finally retires)

{End slide and have it disappear left with a little zinging noise as a new slide fades in pixellated}
{New slide, wherein we forget everything that was on the last slide}

New Job Titles, Decoded

P1 through P6 not eligible for new business cards, just cross stuff out and write with pen

S6 are all the commsioned sales force, they get to work from home, have cell phones, business cards, company car, and expense account, and no we won't tell you the career path or succession planning for S6 jobs, but just know that it's not S5 that feeds into S6, k?

C4 plastic explosives

D1 through D9 are now called Seven of Nine

M1 through M3 are your boss, but you have a dashed line to M4

M4 is out of the office on business

MI6 don't ask

{End Slide and fade to a black background with the word: "QUESTIONS?" in white letters, then refuse to answer any questions about actual jobs/titles or the specific letter-number combination that goes with any specific job function}

So long as my checks keep getting direct deposited into my account, I don't really care, but it's fun to watch the young engineers who are in their first jobs out of college actually care about this kind of thing. I used to care about it. But now, as long as the checks keep coming, I just don't care. Give me the title of Chief Cook or Underling #17 or even Sr. Peon. I'm cool with it.

So, for 6 minutes this weekend, both Mr. Long-Suffering and I wanted a 3rd baby (at the very same time). It was awfully amazing. But since I have the mirena and those 6 minutes were while we were serving the kids lunch, we were unable to act on it. However, after those six minutes, one kid backtalked and the other one puked, so there's that.

And now Mr. Long-Suffering is sick. There is very little more pathetic than a sick husband. He did put up the large fever numbers though just to prove it and get out of bedtime duty. Any adult with a 103.1 degree fever gets a pass on bedtime duty (mostly so he doesn't infect Bobo...sweet healthy Bobo).

Chuckles went on Monday (Spring Break!) to get his hair cut. I let him pick for himself. He asked the nice lady for a Beiber. Heaven help me. This is the first time he has ever indicated a preference for anything other than a spiky Mohawk. It's just the beginning, and I am not fully ready for his autonomy yet. I think I need another baby to get me through.

We just went through a title alignment thingy, too. I went from "Specialist" to "Representative" - I kinda feel like I should get a headset, or at the very least a white apron like Flo from Progressive.

Hah, apparently I'm not the only person who thinks we work at the same place! Yeah, I'm so over the title thing as well. Just let me keep my sweet part-time schedule, keep paying me, and continue to give me managers who stay out of my business. Then it's all good.